Another hangover free morning in Africa :) I really should have been suffering though considering how strong the punch turned out to be.

As I was already up, I went on a village tour with Randa, Una, Yan and Sam that started at 8.30am well ish after they waited for me to get ready. I'm really glad I went, as it was still informative even though I spent 4 weeks in a similar environment in Kenya. It was a walking tour though and the heat was the same as yesterday.

We visited the local school which had 1500 children between 6-13years and only 10 teachers! The teacher we spoke to had 106 children in his class, which consisted of a concrete room with no tables of chairs they all just crammed in and sat on the floor.

Our guide showed us into his house, which was very cool with the thatched roof but basic. they didn't have beds, they were just happy to have mosquito nets as malaria is a huge problem next to the lake. They cooked outside, their toilet was outside and they had to carry water from the wells. The part of the village we were in, had 3 water pumps for 4000 people. It was an amazing sight seeing the ladies balancing huge buckets of water on their heads, taking it back to their homes.

We visited the local hospital, which I found really interesting. They were lacking resources, they had 1 nurse for a catchment area of 22000 people, the nearest doctor was in a hospital 70km away and there biggest problem was they shared 1 ambulance with another 6 small hospitals. Unbelievable. If the ambulance was busy they then had to rely on public transport to take the patient to the bigger hospital. I was asked if I wanted to come back and do more voluntary work in their village! Now that would be properly living and working in the bush.

The tour finished at 12.30pm so after walking in the heat all morning I was completely done in. We had booked snorkelling though in the afternoon, so after lunch I went for a swim to cool down then watched the locals prepare our evening meal. It was a traditional Malawi meal, all made for us by 2 local men. We had goat on a spit with vegetables etc all grown in the village. The tour group next to us had a roast pig on the spit but I was glad we were having goat as I had never tried this before.

The snorkelling was really good, they took us back out to Kande island where we spent yesterday afternoon :) Seen hundreds of small tropical fish which were brightly coloured. Lake Malawi is a big source for pet shop tropical fish! We were jumping off the rocks again before catching some rays before we were taken back to shore.

Surge and Una the older couple upgraded to a Lake front chalet while we were staying at this campsite, if I knew how cheap it was I think we would all have upgraded. Anyways a few of us went to their balcony and had some girly time painting our nails etc before getting ready for dinner.

When we were on the valley walk a few days ago, I managed to get a thorn from a tree stuck in my arm so I attempted to get it out, but don't think I was very successful. Then yesterday when I was climbing onto the island after our long swim I scraped my knee on the algae rocks which tuned a nice p**** green colour. I seem to be bitten, scraped and bruised more than anyone! Anyways cleaned it up and put my special dressing on it which should do the trick :)

Dinner was amazing though, the goat meat was very tough but I suppose I expected that since the countryside is pretty bare and it looked very lean. Apart from having to chew it a hundred times, it was so tasty, like lamb but maybe slightly more flavour.

It was a very early night for me and was in my tent by 8.30pm. It's a tough life, being in the sun all day having fun!! xxx